News and commentary on the autism epidemic and my beautiful boy who is living with autism.

March 30, 2011

The US Government Wants You To Have 167 Doses of Vaccine

The department of Health and Human Services has built a new web site with your tax dollars. Vaccines.gov.

(How 'bout that tag line, eh? You think they could back up that advertising claim in court? I'm thinking no.)

It has a list of all the vaccines that it wants you to have even though it is not your doctor, doesn't know you and frankly doesn't care what happens to you.

We were upset last year to find that Big Brother had added its 70th doses of vaccine to the childhood schedule. From this new site we learn that adults like me should be getting another 91 doses of vaccine if I live to the age of the average American, 78 long years.

This is 167 doses of vaccine over a life time.

167.

One hundred and sixty seven.

I am just blown away.

How many tens of thousands of dollars is your family worth to Pharma, for them to sell you things. When you are healthy to begin with. I know the childhood schedule gets them about $2,500.00. So maybe 4 or five grand per person?

so.. lack evidence of immunity is being without proof of prior infection or documentation... they forget to mention titers... and how is "HepB" a "lifestyle" vaccine but HPV isn't... what a crock of shit.

I am so very sorry to say that many many people in the state I live in will follow this schedule for themselves and their children. I work in a holistic health care center, but even the people who come here still follow their doctor's care and are afraid to dissent. It is amazing. And very scary.

I am not sure if you are being serious or being ironic. In case you are being serious, I wanted to make sure you knew that the statement you have made, "vaccines are safe," is neither factually true nor legally true.

Vaccines are legally classified by the United States as "Unavoidably Unsafe." This means that it is a product that cannot be made safe for its intended use.

Vaccines can cause serious injury and even kill in some circumstances. This is not a debated topic by anyone. This is why the US government has the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that pays for vaccine injuries and deaths. You can find their table of automatically compensable injuries here:

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/table.htm

Notice that the word "death" occurs in several places.

For more potential serious injuries, you can consult any vaccine package insert.

So you see, vaccines are not "Safe" but potentially harmful and deadly to some, just as almost every other pharmaceutical in existence.

One would never say "antibiotics are safe!" Because everyone knows that in some it will cause anaphylactic shock. No one even says, "Peanuts are safe!". We know they can kill some children.

As a matter of fact, some vaccines actually contain antibiotics and some contain peanut proteins. So how can those substances cause serious reactions and death outside the vaccine, but magically become safe once placed in a vaccine?

But your statement reflects a troubling phenomenon... the almost religious perception that vaccines are magical, sent from heaven, not subject to the laws of nature. What pharmacutical have you heard of that does not cause damage to some? What over the counter medication? Asprin? Tylanol?

There is no such thing Seth.

So, can I ask you, when the government and the pharmaceutical companies and US law freely admit that vaccines can cause injury and death, and they don't know who they will kill and harm (and are not bothering to research to find out) why Seth do you believe that...

Isn't it true, though, that "death" would occur in greater proportion from the natural disease than the vaccine?

I mean, water's not safe, but we drink it. The air is not safe, but we breathe it. Planes are not safe, but we fly them. Isn't there an acceptable level of safety, which is met and maybe even exceeded by vaccines?

I could post a comment as long as yours on what is safe and what isn't, but I need to go (ironically) and get my MMR vaccine for this new job I'm taking. Weird, huh?

Your question presupposes that 167 doses of vaccination are required to prevent death. It also presupposes that we are proposing the elimination of vaccination.

This is a false choice. 167 doses or Zero doses? I was born in 1969, vaccinated according to the schedule (plus a little) and have received around 30 vaccines in my 42 years. A baby now gets more vaccine doses in their first year than I have in my 42 years.

And frankly, we cannot know which will cause more deaths, because vaccine deaths are not investigated. They are labeled SIDS and brushed under the rug.

There are no vaccinate v. unvaccinated studies examining the CDC schedule, and we have no idea how often the chance of premature death increases with the number of vaccines given.

But we do have a lot of smart asses like you who don't take vaccine safety seriously.

But the good thing about this country is that I can decided what I think is safe for me and my children, and you can decide what is a good bed for you and your children.

And you can get the MMR if you want to.

A couple of things though. If you have not left for your appointment yet. Don't get the shot when you are sick. Make sure you read the package insert carefully to see if you have any contraindications because the docs and nurses administering have never even read the instructions on that shot, I can bet on it.

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Big doses of Vitamins A,C and E before and after.

And look into getting your vitamin D levels tested.

And most importantly, don't take Tylenol for the next few weeks. There is a lot of extra crap in that shot that your liver needs to get rid of, and you don't need that drug impairing your liver function.

This is about what shots, in what combination, are too risky for which people.

Penacillin will kill some, so we don't give it to everyone. And we don't give 167 rounds of it.

"Your question presupposes that 167 doses of vaccination are required to prevent death. It also presupposes that we are proposing the elimination of vaccination."

You may not be proposing the elimination of vaccination, Ginger, but you are doing a heck of a job. In fact, I believe that I am a reasonable person, and everything I read on this blog is totally anti-vaccine.

"This is a false choice. 167 doses or Zero doses? I was born in 1969, vaccinated according to the schedule (plus a little) and have received around 30 vaccines in my 42 years. A baby now gets more vaccine doses in their first year than I have in my 42 years."

Yet today's babies get significantly less antigen than you did back then. A fact that you will not publish, though you are not anti-vaccine.

"There are no vaccinate v. unvaccinated studies examining the CDC schedule, and we have no idea how often the chance of premature death increases with the number of vaccines given."

There are. They're not randomized clinical trials because they would be unethical. There are plenty of case-control studies that have plenty of power and both internal and external validity.

"But we do have a lot of smart asses like you who don't take vaccine safety seriously."

A personal attack. That will get us places.

"But the good thing about this country is that I can decided what I think is safe for me and my children, and you can decide what is a good bed for you and your children."

If I were to be the kind of person that only thought about me and mine. But I'm not. I'm looking out for my community and the children under 12mos that I'll be serving who cannot be vaccinated.

"A couple of things though. If you have not left for your appointment yet. Don't get the shot when you are sick. Make sure you read the package insert carefully to see if you have any contraindications because the docs and nurses administering have never even read the instructions on that shot, I can bet on it."

You're accusing them of incompetence without knowing them. Totally unfair to make that assessment of someone you don't know personally or someone whose ideas you've not examined directly.

"Big doses of Vitamins A,C and E before and after. And look into getting your vitamin D levels tested."

I take a multivitamin. "Big doses" will only wash away in my pee... Except for A. My vision is great, though. So I must be good on that one.

Ginger, we're not going to agree on this. I only made an observation, and I ended up being called a "smart ass". I see that, on top of being anti-vaccine, you're also anti-discussion in this echo chamber of yours. Too bad.

By no stretch of the imagination was your note on this blog a good faith comment trying to get somewhere. Please don't insult my intelligence.

And the antigens are at the bottom of my concerns on what is in a vaccine. As a mater of fact, the fact that there are less antigens is kind of the problem.

The antigens are the expensive thing to grow, so they now make cheaper shots with less of it and include adjuvants that cause or exacerbate autoimmune disorders. And give three, four and five at a time.

As far as I am concerned, bring on the antigens.

""There are no vaccinate v. unvaccinated studies examining the CDC schedule, and we have no idea how often the chance of premature death increases with the number of vaccines given."

There are. "

GREAT! Can you post them here? I would like to review them and see if they answer any of the questions that I have been posting on this blog for five years.

Thanks.

And sorry for calling you a smart ass... clearly you are a good and kind and humble person just here to build bridges with the parents of vaccine injured children. How could I be so blind.

I really hope you meant the last statement, Ginger. I have a feeling you don't. Speaking of feelings...

The studies are all out there. As good a job as you do of seeking links to only those things you agree with, you should be fine in finding things that question your beliefs. Analyzing them is not that hard.

Kim Stagliano challenged me to go to the DAN! conference in Baltimore, and I did. Many good intentions, lots of good science, but, unfortunately, lots of conspiracy theories and unsupported stances that fail the tests of science. That's what's hurting your cause... Sounding just like birthers and truthers, only changing the conspiracy you believe in.

As for beliefs, I only tested your logic by stating facts. Water, Air, and airplanes all kill people, yet we're cool with them. The odds of death from a vaccine are astronomical compared to those things (drowning, lung cancer, and crashes).

Of course, you won't believe that last part because of YOUR religious fervor for your cause.

I'm really not that bad of a guy. I'm yet to use profanity or threats of any kind to get my point(s) across. Much like Jesus, I'm all about talking with those I disagree with. Never preach to the choir, my Grandpa said.

BTW, vaccine is done. It's a booster. Mutivitamin coming right up, just for you, Ginger.

One person makes a statement, then backs that statement up with supporting evidence.

For example... In this article I have said that the US government wants you to have 167 doses of vaccine. Then I posted their own web site with that information. You can now check and see if I counted right, and if not, challenge me with corrections or other sources.

When you say, "there are studies", the burden is then on your to show me those studies.

I have never been able to find the studies that I am describing here. If I am just a bad researcher or a moron, then you can prove your point, and crush mine, that the vaccine schedule is insufficiently studied.

You do that by POSTING THE STUDIES.

Not telling me to go find them.

So please... post the studies so I can read them. Because if I am wrong, and they exist, then that is bad and I am working off of false information. Please correct me so I can know if I am wrong and can take this supposed research into account.

I am not Kim Stagliano. If you want to debate her, go debate her. I am not a birther or a truther. I am the mother of a child with all the symptoms of both vaccine encephalopathy and autism. I am Ginger Taylor. If I have said something wrong, please show me where and we can talk about it.

"As for beliefs, I only tested your logic by stating facts. Water, Air, and airplanes all kill people, yet we're cool with them"

I can't believe I have to actually have this debate with you, as if the current vaccine program is analogous to air and water.

But here goes...

Ren... different things have different risks. For example, the water coming out of my RO water filter has lower risks than the water coming out of my tap and those are both lower risk than the water coming out of Fukishema. When I drink water, I measure the risks against my own health picture and make the wises decision I can.

Further, I have to measure how much water to drink and when. 1 glass of water is good for me. 1 gallon could kill me.

The same is true with vaccines. WE measure the vaccine or vaccines, their ingredients, the combinations of ingredients and weigh that against health history and current health to make a determination if the risk is worth the likely benifit.

Here in lies the delimma of the modern American Parent. We know the risks of the disease we are vaccinating for as they have decades of documentation on them, but we don't actually know the risk from the vaccine.

For example... Here is a reasonable question that a parent might have.

Jane's doctor wants her two month old to have the DTaP vaccine, but Jane is worried about autism. Where can Jane find information on whether or not the DTaP vaccine increases a child's risk of autism?

The problem is, Jane can't. There is not one study that looks at DTaP and autism risk.

Bill is worried that giving his baby all the recommended doses of vaccine at his baby's 6 month appointment will increase his baby's autism risk. But too bad for Bill, not one of those vaccines, much less their combined administration is studied to see if they may increase the childs chances if developing autism.

See Ren, since water and air are the building blocks of life (as opposed to mercury, aluminum, antibiotics and bovine cow serium) we can be relatively assured that unless they are seriously contaminated, we are going to be ok with them. And there are measures in place to test city water to make sure that they are not toxic.

Not so with vaccine Ren. Basic question of parents cannot be answered by currently available research.

So you see how your "air, water" analogy is kinda dishonest?

The odds of death from a vaccine are astronomical compared to those things (drowning, lung cancer, and crashes)."

That is an assumption, please show me your sources for that statement.

And who says "death" is the only thing to fear?

There are roughly 300 million people in this country. Let's pretend that all of them are vaccinated.

The US government has paid out more than 2,500 cases of vaccine injury and death.

That means that serious vaccine injury in this country is around 1 in 120,000. And that is assuming that EVERY vaccine injury is diagnosed and paid by the government. One CDC cheif estimated that only 1 in 100 serious vaccine injuries were even reported (much less compensated) which would make the vaccine injury rate 1 in 12,000.

I have to say Ren and Ginger you both did pretty good at getting your points across. A few jabs on both ends but still you both made your points. I am one that is considered an "anti-vaxxer", "truther" and what ever other names people like to use to get around discussing what is important. However, I think it is important to always hear the other perspective, whether we agree or not, because that is what it takes to have a constructive discussion. Respecting each others decisions is important and I wish we could see more of it. In the end we should try to remember that I'm guessing we both want what is best for our children.

I guess I could mock you for asking me to show you evidence. But I won't. I will tell you a truth, though. The truth is that you will not now and not ever accept any evidence that contradicts your assertions. Plain and simple.

The minute you called me a smart ass, any semblance of a debate evaporated. This is because you know very well all of the evidence for the safety and reliability of vaccines. You know it because you rant and rave against it in this blog.

You knock down evidence against your assertions with terms like "conflict of interest", "big pharma shills", and "government plots". You go on and on about the US Government knowing very well that it's the State government that mandate vaccinations. Otherwise, you wouldn't be calling for State exemptions. You'd just lobby for a Federal exemption.

See why I can't bring any evidence to you? You'll knock it down, call me names, and maybe even say things about me (like that I'm a pharma shill or some nonsense) instead of attacking the study design, the findings, or the plausibility of said findings. If the study finds that vaccines do not cause autism, you assasinate the character of the study publishers. If Dr. Wakefield is found to be fraudulent in his study that allegedly linked vaccines and autism (though it didn't, making only an alleged link between a vaccine and gut inflammation in a handful of kids), then you fervently defend him.

I'd ask you who is worshiping whom, but that's not the point.

So, no, you're not telling me how to have a debate. Not now, not ever.

I asked about the relative safety of things, and you have attacked me. Now I don't know math. Now I don't know how to debate. Now I don't know that vaccines don't cause autism.

As for math, let's have a pop-quiz. Multiply the probabilities of drowning by the probabilities of lung cancer and by the probabilities of dying in an aeronautical accident. Then tell me if those are better or worse than DEATH from a vaccine.

From the American Academy of Pediatrics, updated November 2010. (Sorry I can't get you updated stuff. It's late, and I only have access to journals at work.)

www.aap.org/immunization/families/faq/vaccinestudies.pdf

Ginger, you get mad props, mad, mad props if you don't use the words "vaccinated vs. unvaccinated", "big pharma", "shills", "conflict of interest", or "Obama is not an American" in your evaluation of the evidence.

Just wondering if there are any vaccines that you think are okay for the average kid. Assuming generally good health, no contraindications as listed in the inserts, etc. Which ones are okay, in your estimation?

Your question seems a simple one, but it hits on the problems that this blog is has been discussing for years.

We don't know what "generally good health" actually is.

Via the Hannah Poling case, HRSA and HHS ruled that she had a pre existing mitochondrial disorder that interacted with her vaccines to cause a neurological regression into autism.

Julie Gerberding then made the statement that her case should not be applied to "normal" children. Except that she was by all signs a "normal" child before her vaccine regression. In fact she was neurologically advanced and had been recruited to be a typical peer to disabled children as a social model for their behavior.

So the premise of your question is actually part of the big problem. That there is no screening to see which children look healthy but are not.

My oldest son was vaccinated according to schedule until age 3, then received two more shots following his brother's regression. I took extreme caution in giving them.

My youngest son received a few less shots (missed appointments and "fell behind") with far less mercury than his brother, and it crashed him.

Neither will receive any more vaccine (unless people are dropping in the streets from ebola or something, then my older son might be a candidate, but my younger son can't be vaccinated again)

So what is the difference? Their docs thought they were in "generally good health, no contraindications as listed in the inserts, etc" but one of them wasn't and suffered a vaccine encephalopathy. Like Hannah Poling.

This buren is on the HHS and CDC to answer.

We do not know which children, which vaccines are safe for.

There are some children who get a full schedule and have no perceivable problems for them.

There are some children who seem the picture of health that die after one vaccine.

It is not my burden to say which are safe for whom. It is my choice to decide what I think it is the best risk for my children.

It is the editorial policy of this blog to encourage parents to take responsibility for their own health and research vaccination and each vaccine in general, and decide for themselves, with the advice of a medical practitioner that they share the same values with, what the wisest choice is for them.

I know that is probably not the short answer you are looking for, but that is where I stand.

Ginger, just a quick correction re: Hannah Poling. IIRC, the fever she had from the vaccine was what made her mito disorder worse. That being the case, any fever was very likely to have triggered it.

While I can acknowledge that we do not know, with 100% certainty, which individual child will suffer an adverse reaction and which will not, research (and decades of worldwide use) has given a reasonable understanding of the rate of complications from vaccines vs. the rate of complications from the diseases prevented.

For example, we know that for measles, the risk of death from disease is about 1-2 per 1,000. Encephalitis occurs in about 1 in 1,000. The risk of any complication is about 1 in 5 or so (that includes pneumonia, ear infection, diarrhea and so forth). And even if the child pulls through without any apparent complications, there is still the risk that they will suffer SSPE, a rare yet fatal complication of natural infection. By contrast, that risk of severe allergic reaction or encephalitis from the measles vaccine is about 1 in 1,000,000.

Some may argue that the MMR causes autism, yet there have been no quality studies that have found such a causal relationship and many studies that have found no correlation.

With that information, would you say that, in general (and acknowledging that there can be valid exceptions), the MMR is warranted?

The poling fever/vaccine discussion is a whole other thing... and I am tired. Later.

But you have offered a reasonable assessment of risk from measles complications.

Then you go here: "By contrast, that risk of severe allergic reaction or encephalitis from the measles vaccine is about 1 in 1,000,000."

And this is where the problem starts. First, send me your basis for this statement.

(and please keep in mind, I am not MMR girl. We stopped vaccinating Chandler after his regression following DTaP, Polio, HIB, Hep B and Pnumo, so he never got MMR. So I have not focused on it at all.)

Second, if measles vaccine damage were 1 in a million, there would be no more than 300 measles vaccine damage cases in the country, and I probably have 500 facebook friend claiming MMR vaccine damage.

Again.. here in lies the problem. MMR damage is not studied. People claiming MMR damage are not studied. Samples are very biased and often cannot be applied to the general population. We don't know what the true rate is.

Further, since we give so many other shots with MMR, we don't know if damage that follows is MMR or the other shots or the combination or what. (which is one of the reasons that saying that it is purely the fever and not the vaccine but could happen with any fever is, I believe, wishful thinking. You cannot separate the vaccine, it components and the fever causally, and there are no studies that I know of that can be applied to fever with and with out vaccine on encephalopathy... let me know if I have missed something)

We have 300 million Americans. We have paid out 2500 vaccine injuries. that is 1 in 120,000. And most people don't even know that they may have vaccine injuries, that the program exists and those that file get treated like criminals and driven out of the system with out compensation.

There are no studies of those who believe that they have MMR induced autism to show what percentage meets the criteria for MMR encephalopathy.

There are no studies of the VICP compensated encephalopathy cases to see how many of them are MMR or how many of them are autism or fit the description of autism.

I say we cannot know the true risk for brain damage from MMR.

But HRSA has said that but for the administration of MMR, Baily Banks got PDD. "Caused in fact".

So the burden is on them to tell us how that happens, what they know about risk factors and what the real risk from MMR damage.

That way parents can have their children screened if they so choose to, to see if they have any of the known risk factors.

You and I know that asymptomatic mito is now a known risk factor for vaccine encephalopathy that is also autism. We know that because we follow this story.

How many physicians do you think know this?

Last week a GP called me. Does lots of peds in his hospital. Administers vaccines. He wrote me and said, "I am leaning away from vaccines causing autism". I said, "OK... call me sometime and lets discuss".

He called. I asked him to tell me what he knew about vaccine induced encephalopathy.

He had never heard of it. The ONLY doctor I have interviewed that had heard of it was Jon Poling.

I said, "OK... so if a two year old comes in, lost eye contact, not responding to anything but loud shouting, seems disconnected and doesn't seem to recognize people he knows, you are taught that the child has "autism" and to refer to speech, etc.".

He said, "Yea. Of course".

And if mom says, "it happened after his last shots" then she is just grasping our of despiration, and you are to tell her vaccines don't cause autism, right...

Then I showed him the HHS Vaccine injury compensation table that listed those symptoms as an adverse outcome of DTaP and MMR.

Then asked... "So... does the child have vaccine encephalopathy or autism? How do you differentiate?

There was a lot of silence after that. He asked some more questions about timing.

If you know of a way to differentiate the two, please tell me. I can't find anything on it.

So Todd.... if most vaccine injury is being diagnosed as this kinda made up disorder that is merely a description of behaviors called "autism" or "Blublu Disorder" or whatever.... and we have decided that that behavioral disorder is not associated with vaccines and never to assess children with those random labels for vaccine damage.

Then Todd... how in the world do you believe that we have anything close to a true assessment of how often vaccines cause brain damage?

Our doctors are specifically trained NOT to see it, and deny it and mock parents as uneducated and emotional when they bring up the possibly.

I could not be more vocal that my child has a vaccine injury. Not one of his pediatricians has ever assessed him for vaccine injury of any kind, nor ever tried to find a physical cause for his "autism".

The children who are regressing are NOT studied. 18% of the children in this country have a developmental disability or delay.

So what we can say is that vaccine injury is somewhere between 1 in 120,000 and 18% of the population.

HHS has no interest in narrowing that down for us, much less teasing out how much of it is being caused by MMR.

Ginger, the mistake you are making is in thinking that all developmental delays are the result of vaccine injury. Just as no one can say that none of them are caused by vaccines, neither can you suggest that they all are. Likewise, you seem to be saying that all autism is encephalopathy. In fact, according to the CDC, most kids with autism have not had encephalopathy (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/mitochondrial-faq.html).

The same thing for mito disorders. Not everyone with a mito disorder has autism, and not everyone with autism has a mito disorder. The prevalence of mito disorders is about 1:8,500 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1224/).

As to my 1 in 1 million risk of MMR encephalopathy or severe allergic reaction, I found that from the CDC.

You said:

"There are no studies of those who believe that they have MMR induced autism to show what percentage meets the criteria for MMR encephalopathy."

I haven't had time to check your claim on this, but we don't really need to look specifically at encephalopathy caused by MMR. There have been a bunch of studies looking at MMR and autism, finding no correlation.

Now, I can understand where you are coming from. You had an experience that was very emotional and personal. Since I wasn't there, nor am I a doctor, I can't say specifically whether or not your son's issues are related to the vaccines. You are convinced that they are. But you are also very close to the situation. When that happens, we lose perspective. We can't see all of the factors that may be playing a part. That's why personal experiences, although fine for suggesting questions or directions of study, shouldn't be used to state decisively that X is the case. We are inherently biased and can very easily trick ourselves.

Think about this for a moment: autism has been around since well before Kanner described it, well before vaccines were the norm and certainly before thimerosal was developed. Before it was called autism, it was dementia praecox, or precocious dementia. Before that, who knows what it was called. We also know that vaccines have been around a long time and have been used in billions of people worldwide. In the U.S., they are one of the most regulated and studied medical products around, with years and years of study before they reach the market and required surveillance after the general public starts using them.

You are coming from a place of fear and distrust, and that is understandable, but it seems to be hindering you from accepting facts that do not fit with your view of what you think is true.

I am absolutely NOT saying all developmental delays are vaccine injuries. That is stupid.

I am saying we don't know what percent is. And that is the range.

Please... I really am tired of bad faith arguements and I thought you were being serious with me.

I have to go to a meeting to talk about my son's evaluations. If you want to have a real conversation, great, but I am begging you... if you are just going to do the same junk Ren was doing, then lets just agree to spend our time on productive things.

I am trying to have a meaningful conversation and not just jerk your chain, Ginger. We both want the same thing: the best health, care and safety for children.

Hope the meeting goes well. BTW, I saw that you are in the Maine area? Have you contacted the LADDERS program at all down in Massachusetts? I've heard they do some pretty good work, helping both those directly affected by an ASD and their families.

Sorry, I don't mean to spam your comments, but I felt I should clarify something that I said.

My point in bringing up the MMR and measles was to illustrate how the risks of a disease (e.g., 1:1,000 encephalitis from measles) is much greater than the risk from the vaccine (same outcome from MMR is 1:1,000,000).

I also just wanted to make clear that I do not claim or suggest that vaccines are 100% safe. There are risks. In fact, you may have received one of the most riskiest vaccines, yourself: smallpox. That vaccine had pretty significant risks associated with it, and its use was justifiably stopped in the 1970s in the U.S. because, at that point, smallpox had become so rare in the world that even with travel, it was unlikely an average person would come in contact with the rather dangerous disease. The benefit:risk ratio no longer favored the vaccine's use in the U.S.

Polio is almost at that point, but not quite. The measles vaccine could also be ended if enough people around the planet are immunized, but, as evidence by the outbreaks in Minnesota, Australia, Boston and elsewhere show, we're still a long way off from that. At any rate, there is opportunity to get vaccines removed, permanently, from the schedule, but only if enough of us receive it to rob the viruses of their only reservoirs.

At any rate, I hope you will accept my comments in the good faith that I have offered them.